Mike Specian

One of Stephen Colbert’s first guests on the Late Show was SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The two had been discussing the future of interplanetary space travel, which Musk commented was only feasible with reusable rockets, lest the project become “crazy expensive.” Colbert played a video clip in which one of SpaceX’s Falcon rockets was attempting to land on a drone ship at sea. As the rocket approached it tilted, unable to maintain its verticality. Moments after it descended through a plume of smoke, it exploded into a fireball.

“It broke a leg on landing,” Musk said.

I had been relating this story to a full room of about 30 senior physics students at my alma mater, Phillipsburg High School (PHS). I had used a connection with a former teacher to solicit an invitation to return and speak, something I had wanted to do for years. I figured that becoming a “real scientist” was sufficient pretext to warrant a visit and presentation of my knowledge, experiences, and yes, opinions. However, I hadn’t settled on what I wanted to say until just the day before.

Continuing my story, I told them how Colbert leaned in empathetically and asked, “How heartbreaking was it to get that close?”

The audience laughed, of course, at the absurdity of a man shaking off such a costly disaster. Musk wasn’t looking at it that way, though. He said, “I think we’re feeling sad, but happy at the same time because if we could reduce the landing velocity, we could cause it to land and stay upright and not explode.”

“That’s one of goals of rockets, isn’t it, to not explode,” Colbert responded to a round of laughter.

Their interaction was meaningful to me, not so much for its content, but for Musk’s demeanor. It seemed as if the insinuation that Musk ought to be upset didn’t even register with him. In his mind he had already moved past it. He recognized that failure was part of the process, an inevitable and expected component of success.

The day before returning to PHS, I made a stop in my home town of Alpha, NJ. I had been invited to speak to Alpha Public School’s (APS) eighth graders about what it takes to become a scientist. Their teacher, Mrs. Flynn, asked her class, “How many of you are thinking about a career in science?” Only one young man in her two science classes raised his hand. Others chimed in later that they were interested in medicine or engineering, indicating that many had not made the connection between the two. I told them what one must study, where one must go to school, and all the work that goes into getting a Ph.D. I spoke to the mechanics of the process, and just like that our 40 minutes was over.

I thanked Mrs. Flynn for being a welcoming host and reminded her that her students could always call on me as a resource if they ever had any questions. They offered few while I was in the room. Perhaps they were intimidated. Or confused. Mrs. Flynn suggested that they all needed to save face around one another. Regardless, I felt I could have done better.

It was still early in the morning, so I exited the school and walked across the street to Myrna’s house. Myrna had been the Alpha Borough librarian for the last 25 years during which time we’d formed a unique bond. She was aware that my mother, who has a personality disorder, would lock me out of the house for hours on end. The Alpha Public Library became my sanctuary, and Myrna, my guardian. I spent countless hours there reading, writing, and being her personal gadfly. She almost always had a package of Butterscotch Krimpets for me, and would occasionally finance my hot dog eating excursions to Charlie’s Pool Room down the street.

Her eyes lit up when she saw me. She invited me in and we both sat down at the kitchen table. “I have something for you,” I said.

I reached into my backpack and pulled out a bound book wrapped in cellophane. I dropped it onto the table with a thud. The cover read, “Improved Galaxy Counting Techniques and Noise Reduction Algorithms as Applied to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.”

“It’s my dissertation!” I said. “Read the dedication.”

Myrna got her glasses and turned to the page. It read:

My “initial conditions” during childhood made it unlikely that I would ever reach this point. Yet I was exceptionally lucky to grow up in the beautiful little borough of Alpha, NJ. Alpha Public School provided me an excellent elementary education, but what really saved me was the Alpha Public Library and its librarian, Myrna. Myrna offered me refuge and support as if I was her own grandson. I am not sure I could have made it through without her. She is a testament to the value of small town public libraries everywhere.

“Oh, Michael,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “This is wonderful.” After a long moment taking it in, she handed me a letter. “Look at this.”

The letter was from the Alpha Borough Council, thanking her for decades of meritorious service at the Alpha Public Library and wishing her well in her retirement.

“You’re retiring!” I exclaimed.

“They’re drumming me out! They think I’m lazy because I won’t learn the new system.”

We sat at that kitchen table for the next four hours, talking about family, things that change, and things that never do. I told her about graduate school, future plans, trips taken, and interests acquired. It was easily the most mature and introspective conversation we’d shared.

“Have you spoken to Mr. Davis,” she asked.

Davis was APS’s 6th-8th grade English teacher, and had been since my time there. Myrna sometimes referred to him as a “wackadoo,” which I always interpreted to mean “an interesting character.” Davis had a penchant for the dramatic, peppering his correspondences with words like “salutations,” “prodigious,” and “burgeoning.” When attempting to arrange my meeting to APS he wrote, “No computer at home–try my utmost to keep alive the inimitable precedent once espoused by the great Ray Bradbury himself.”

“We communicated briefly over email,” I said, “but I haven’t gotten a chance to have a in-person conversation with him yet. Maybe now is a good time to head over and say hi.”

Before I left, Myrna gathered a bunch of little gifts for me – a plastic bookmark that instructed “reading was fundamental”, a wooden ruler, a blue translucent keychain bearing the words “Zikas for Mayor” left over from former Alpha mayor Harry Zikas’s campaign in the early 2000’s, a black and white printout of Phillipsburg’s old silk processing plant, and an Alpha town pin. “Sorry, if I knew you were coming I would have gotten some Krimpets,” she said.

I walked back across the street and reentered APS. I climbed to the second floor and stepped into a large classroom at the end of the hall. The walls were decorated with posters featuring prepositions, parts of speech, and notable quotes. Davis’s old fish tank was still humming in the corner.

“Sir,” he said firmly, extending his hand.

I replied, “Mr. Davis. It’s good to see you.” We spoke for about an hour on a range of interesting topics, but one in particular had been on my mind.

“I’m speaking to the high school kids tomorrow,” I told him. “I haven’t quite figured out what to talk to them about yet.”

Davis asked, “Why did you want to talk to them in the first place?”

“I wanted to give back,” I answered. “I realize that I wouldn’t be here without the help of a small handful of dedicated people, and I count you and Myrna among them. Despite everything else going on at the time, I felt lucky in that regard. If my experiences can make the path easier for someone else, then I’d certainly like to try. I want to offer them the insights and lessons I never received.”

Davis said, “So tell them your life story. Show them what’s possible.”

At the time, I didn’t think of my childhood as anything abnormal. We accept the reality of the world we’re presented, and my reality was relentless exposure to mental illness. I knew that my family didn’t have a lot of money, even by Alpha’s lower middle class standards. I was evicted from my home on two occasions, and eventually moved in with friends.

I admitted to Davis – perhaps the first time I’d admitted this to anyone from Alpha – that this environment had actually turned me into a minor criminal. On days when the library closed early at 5pm, I would sometimes have no place to go to finish my homework. One alternative location I’d staked out was our town’s local Presbyterian church. The building was locked, but they usually keep the basement window slightly ajar, just enough for a small arm to reach inside and rotate the handle. I would shimmy through into the hall where our Boy Scout meetings were held (an activity I eventually quit since I couldn’t afford to do most of the activities), then upstairs to a room where I could do my homework until the sun went down and I ran out of light.1Alerting members of one’s small town to one’s presence in not-one’s church by turning on a light was perceived by me to be a poor idea.

“You made it out on your own steam,” Davis told me.

He advised me to emphasize to the students that no matter how poor they grew up, no matter how many obstacles they faced, or how many rockets blew up in their face, there was always a way out.

I never imagined this would be my message. I envisioned leading classes into deep conversations about the nature of the Universe. The high school students and I would ultimately talk about it, but only briefly, as they seemed surprisingly disinterested in the insights of a real astrophysicist. When I mentioned that Chile’s high-altitude Atacama Desert is an ideal location for observations, one ninth grader asked me the important question, “Are there camels up there?”

“What else should I talk about,” I asked Davis. All these years later I still valued his advice.

“Tell them to think critically. Always examine the assumptions that go into an argument. Strive fervently, but honestly. Never let fear of failure hold you back.”

The following day at PHS a senior honors physics student asked me, “How difficult was it to finish your Ph.D.?” I answered him truthfully saying, “It was really, really hard. I had about five full-fledged theories fail completely. I was on the verge of giving up. But I kept at it.” Then I told the Elon Musk story. It seemed to fit the moment.

Myrna and Davis helped me realize that my return home was less about science, and more about my journey. It was probably naïve to think I could talk about creating a scientific career without first addressing the obstacles so many of us face just getting out the gate, like ignorance, poverty, abuse and lack of guidance. So while I had my peace to say on course selection, careers in science, and climate change, everything I had to offer was the consequence of a stubborn refusal to let my early circumstances define me. I learned that through it all, it was the personal story that was most compelling.

I am proud to present my list of the best professional wrestling matches of 2015! Only matches that I have viewed personally are eligible for this list, which largely limits this consideration to WWE, NXT, Ring of Honor, and New Japan Pro Wrestling (sorry TNA). I’ve sorted these matches into silver, gold, and platinum tiers with the latter containing my personal ranking for the top nine matches of the year. Of the 26 listed, the breakdown by company is:

Kazuchika Okada vs. Roderick Strong – Field of Honor – An excellent addition to the Roderick Strong Versus the World Tour. Witnessing one of the very best American wrestlers grapple with the IWGP Heavyweight Champion was an absolute pleasure.

Jason Jordan and Chad Gable vs. Rhyno and Baron Corbin – NXT TakeOver: Respect – Jason Jordan and Chad Gable have done an amazing job of winning over the NXT crowd with little more than being excellent in the ring. Gable is a chain wrestling prodigy, while Jordan is a hard-hitting amateur-style star in the making. This was the biggest match these two had ever been in, and they delivered. Corbin’s End of Days in this match was a thing a beauty.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Katsuyori Shibata – G1 Climax Day 13 – This was a Shibata-style match, but Tanahashi hung with him the entire time, proving why he is one of the best in the world. In one memorable sequence Tanahashi stopped Shibata’s signature hesitation dropkick with a kick to his shin. When Shibata ran to the far rope to try it again, Tanahashi rose from the corner to counterstrike, but Shibata turned around quickly and delivered the European uppercut. Spots like these made this match feel familiar and original all at once. They traded submissions, then worked up to strikes. The finish deflated me, but could not diminish the quality of a contest that was fun from start to finish.

Seth Rollins (c) vs. Neville for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship – Monday Night Raw June 3 – In my opinion this was Neville’s best match in WWE. He executed a number flips and ranas the WWE audience had never seen before. The unconscious Rollins’s foot on the rope following the Red Arrow was one of the closest two-counts EVER in a WWE Championship match. Outstanding, athletic, heart-racing stuff.

Kota Ibushi vs. Tetsuya Naito – G1 Climax Day 11 – By this point, Naito had fully adopted the role of despicable heel, while Ibushi fought with heart and full crowd support. There were some AWESOME high-impact maneuvers and counters in this one, like Naito’s top rope reverse hurricanrana that I thought took Ibushi’s head off, and Ibushi’s jumping over Naito’s sliding kick and landing straight on Naito’s chest. This match actually made me yell out loud at multiple moments. These two have such amazing chemistry together.

Katsuyori Shibata vs. Kota Ibushi – G1 Climax Day 7 – This was probably the best third-match-from-the-top of any of the G1 Climax shows this year. You knew with the talent of the men involved that this was going to be great, and it was. If only they had given them more time.

Jay Lethal (c) vs. Roderick Strong for the ROH Championship – Death Before Dishonor – One of two matches on this list that I saw live this year, this 60-minute marathon had a polarizing effect on fans. Some thought it went too long without a satisfying conclusion. I’m in the other camp that marvels at the ability for two wrestlers to perform the very difficult feat of going the hour. This is worth your time.

Seth Rollins (c) vs. John Cena for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship – SummerSlam/Night of Champions – I’m lumping these two matches together because I thought they were equally good. I want to pay special attention to the SummerSlam match where Rollins just totally rocked it. He adopted the new white gear, and since he was given a chance to work a long match, looked like a superstar. Rollins brought out a lot of stuff we don’t normally see from him like the frog splash, roll-through Attitude Adjustment, and superplex into a falcon arrow. The crowd’s energy was excellent as well. Even the Jon Stewart finish couldn’t take away from two of 2015’s best.

Gold Tier

Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs. Tomoaki Honma for the NEVER Championship – Power Struggle – This was similar is style to their match at New Beginning Sendai, but better on all levels. These men fought like warriors, connecting with more high impact clotheslines, slaps, elbows, and by-God headbuts than I could count. After missing the first couple, Honma hit a suite of Kokeshis from every possible angle including a sick one off the top rope to the floor. The last few minutes saw a slew of near falls following moves that looked like they could kill a normal person. I thought it was over numerous times before Ishii finished Honma off with the brainbuster. The crowd was super into it, and the sight of Honma being helped out in tears was perfect. Excellent match!

HHH vs. Sting – Wrestlemania XXXI – I understand that this might be a unpopular choice for some because, let’s face it, the action in the ring was not the best you’re going to see. However, the spectacle of seeing Sting wrestling in a WWE ring for the first time was definitely special. What made the match for me though, was a first-time ever epic encounter between DX and the nWo. I know they’re all really friends and were standing together at the Hall of Fame the night before, but it didn’t matter to me. Plus, it’s Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania. I apologize for being such a mark.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship – Wrestle Kingdom 9 – The story going into this match was that in order for Okada to become the “ace” or “face” of the company, he had to go through Tanahashi first. This was outstanding from bell to bell. Both men won their share of fan support before the end of the match brought them to a frenzy. For the very first time, someone (Tanahashi) kicked out of the Rainmaker Clothesline! This match provided great drama and a surprising finish – one that would ultimately pay off a year later – that make this a must-see.

Shinsuke Nakamura (c) vs. Kota Ibushi for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship – Wrestle Kingdom 9 – Both of these men had an excellent year filled with classic matches, but in the eyes of many, including me, this is one of the best. Dave Meltzer gave this match 5 stars and I’m not going to argue with his assessment. The sight of Ibushi German suplexing Nakamura into the ring while standing the second rope still hangs with me. If you are a wrestling fan and missed this match, do yourself a service and find it. It is beyond excellent.

ROH All Stars (The Briscoes, Roderick Strong & War Machine) vs. Bullet Club (AJ Styles, The Young Buck, Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) – War of the Worlds Night 1 – This was probably the best 10-man tag match I have ever seen. The action was so fast, furious, and impactful that it was hard to even keep up with all of it. Each wrestler was given an opportunity to look like a star and the finish took nothing away from anybody. You might call this a demolition derby, and it might be more candy than steak, but my goodness was it delicious candy. This was one of ROH’s best matches of 2015.

KUSHIDA vs. Kyle O’Reilly – New Japan Best of the Super Jr.’s Finals – These two fought like heroes for 32 minutes. Both men suffered arm injuries in the match which caused them to adapt their styles. There were plenty of high-impact moves, strikes, parries, counterstrikes, dodges, and chain wrestling. The last five minutes were packed with edge-of-your-seat action and dramatic near falls. The winner moved into a higher position, and the loser looks better in the loss than when he came in. This is the way wrestling is supposed to be done.

Bayley (c) vs. Sasha Banks for the NXT Women’s Championship in a 30-minute Ironman Match – NXT TakeOver: Respect – Many people view Sasha Banks as one of – if not the – best female wrestlers in the world. In this match, Bayley got to prove that she’s right on that same level. Because it was held at Full Sail, it didn’t possess the epic aura of their classic in Brooklyn, but the more intimate atmosphere allowed for some great heel antics, like when Sasha stole Izzie’s headband to mock Bayley. This is was the first time (in my memory) that women were given the opportunity to main event a major show, and they delivered. The moment when the locker room came out to congratulate Sasha before she moved up to the main roster for good put a giant smile on my face.

Bayley vs. Sasha Banks (c) for the NXT Women’s Championship – NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn – This was absolutely incredible, and arguably the best women’s match in WWE history. Sasha entered in a giant black SUV flanked by bodyguards, making her look like a total boss. Her disdain for Bayley’s dream to become champion coursed throughout this match. The little mannerisms, glances, and details made this special, like when Sasha stomped on Bayley’s hand as she reached for the ropes to break the Bank Statement. Bayley reversed Sasha into her own Bank Statement. Sasha kicked out of the Bayley-to-Belly. Bayley shocked the world with a top rope reverse hurricanrana. The moment where the Four Horsewomen gathered together in the ring to celebrate was one of my favorite moments of the year. I felt sorry for the main event. They had no chance of surpassing this.

John Cena vs. Seth Rollins vs. Brock Lesnar (c) for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship – Royal Rumble – Three consumate professionals competed together and proved just how good they are. Tight sequences, expertly-exucted manuevers, and impecable timing were everywhere here. Seth Rollins’s elbow from the top rope through Lesnar on the table was ridiculous! The Phoenix Splash spot was amazingly well-timed. The counter of finishers at the end was simply excellent. If only the rest of WWE’s 2015 was this good.

Platinum Tier

9) AJ Styles (c) vs. Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship – Dominion – This was the best match of what was arguably New Japan’s best show of the year. The series of rapid counters and near falls was remarkable. I will never forget the final flurry between these two that eventually ended the match. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything better than it.

8) Kevin Owens vs. John Cena – Money in the Bank/Elimination Chamber/Battleground – This was easily the best series of three matches between any two wrestlers this year. Kevin Owens made a memorable Raw debut by going right after John Cena and telling him that he was going to beat him. Then, in his first match on the main roster, Kevin Owens did just that. His win sent shock waves through WWE, raising speculation that maybe there was an opportunity for a new top guy to emerge. The results of the next two matches dampened that enthusiasm, but we shouldn’t let that distract us from the fact that Owens and Cena produced three absolute classics this year.

7) Kota Ibushi vs. AJ Styles – G1 Climax Day 5 – AJ Styles wrestled this match right around the time he turned 38 years of age. What’s so remarkable is that I’m not sure he’s hit his peak yet. He doesn’t seem to have lost any of his athleticism. His mat wrestling has improved since his time in TNA and his character is more well-developed than ever. In short, he looks like a superstar. In this match, AJ had the opportunity to tangle with another one of the top – and underrated – stars in the world, Kota Ibushi. Ibushi held his own to prove to AJ and all of New Japan that the future is indeed bright.

6) AJ Styles vs. Jay Lethal (c) for the ROH Championship – Final Battle – AJ entered this match having had probably the best year of his professional career. He was one of the few gaijin to ever hold the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, and he put on classics while defending it. His Bullet Club was one of the hottest acts in wrestling. More importantly, wherever AJ Styles goes, he’s a megastar. As mentioned on commentary, Jay Lethal must be included in the discussion for best year of any ROH wrestler ever. He was the longest reigning TV Champion in history. He won the World Championship simultaneously and successfully defended both on the same show. He went an hour with Roderick Strong. He made himself arguably into Ring of Honor’s top guy.

These factors made this match tremendously compelling. We entered expecting each to be on top of their game, but both elevated theirs. The first few minutes saw multiple bouts of superior chain wrestling – acts that were long, fluid and innovative. Lethal went after the back, knowing that AJ had been rehabbing it for weeks. Truth interjected himself in all the right moments. A couple wicked spots near the end of the match – including one involving a table – and a finish that seamlessly incorporated Lethal’s storyline with Jerry Lynn made this my favorite ROH match of 2015.

5) Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kota Ibushi – G1 Climax Day 1 – This was the main event of the show that kicked off the G1 Climax tournament, and New Japan picked a doozy. I usually keep notes during matches, but this time I just got too lost in the action. The only thing I wrote down afterwards was “wrestling perfection.” Stop what you’re doing right now and go watch this.

4) Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Hirooki Goto (c) for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship – Destruction in Kobe – This was the product of two masters of their craft who know each other well. Throughout the entire contest, we waited for each wrestler’s signature maneuvers, and so did they. Every move was made new by the creative counters and counters to counters each man employed. This match included working on body parts, hard hitting Japanese-style striking, fluid and innovative technical wrestling, and a slew of near falls. The finish was so satisfying that I actually threw my hands up into the air and cheered after the three count. God, was this good.

3) Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker – Hell in a Cell – JBL commented on how the mood of the entire arena changed when this match started, and he was right. This had the feel of two men about to go to war. It was one of the stiffest WWE matches you would see in 2015. Brock and Taker both bled hardway, and it stood out so much since WWE rarely does blood anymore. Lesnar employed wicked chair shots, went brarefisted, and executed quick-as-hell suplexes. Taker took a BEATING, but managed a Hell’s Gate and enough strikes to stay in it. Both men kicked out of each other’s finishers. Lesnar’s seeing the tear in the canvas and deciding to tear the ring up was brilliant. I can’t remember ever seeing the wood beneath the ring in WWE before. The postmatch was perfect. Brock is sold as unbeatable, Taker gets minutes of pure respect as if it’s his last match, and the Wyatts carry him away. I have a busy mind, but I did not lose focus on this for one second. In my opinion this was the best WWE match of 2015.

2) Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. AJ Styles – G1 Climax Day 17 – This was an epic 23-minute contest in which the winner would win the A Block and advance to the G1 Climax Finals. This was a back-and-forth affair in which both men stayed so evenly matched, you couldn’t wait to see who would ultimately seize the advantage. Every move seemed to have a counter, and every impact that landed was intense. This was one of those fights in which all the little things seemed to matter, where the fluidity makes it seem like the game is slowing down for the wrestlers, while we marvel at their heroics in real time. AJ and Tanahashi eventually hit their own finishers and then the other’s! The crowd built to a frenzy by the end of this wrestling classic.

1) Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura – G1 Climax Final – The G1 Climax is unquestionably the greatest annual tournament in wrestling, and the Finals has consistently delivered one of its best matches. The winner of this one would advance to the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 10 to face the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, Kazuchika Okada. Okada had regained the championship earlier in the year, but had yet to cement himself as the “ace” of the company. If Tanahashi won, Okada would face the current ace, and the man he had never been able to defeat at Wrestle Kingdom. If Nakamura won, Okada would face the leader of his own faction, CHAOS, in a match that could see Nakamura “pass the torch” to his younger stablemate.

With the future direction of New Japan Pro Wrestling on the line, the pressure was squarely on the shoulders of arguably the two greatest professional wrestlers in the world to deliver a match worthy of the set up. Given the talent levels of Tanahashi and Nakamura, the fans were expecting something special. We ended up getting a wrestling classic, and one that earns the distinction of being my favorite match of 2015.

Anticipation was palpable. The fans buzzed like a Wimbledon crowd that wanted to explode into cheers, but which was constrained by respect and cultural convention. Tanahashi set the early pace by working a headlock. Once Nakamura escaped, they fell into “wrestling jazz,” a sort of improvisational grappling that ultimately led to a standoff.

Long matches of this kind always need a spark to propel them to the next level. Here, that spark was disrespectful taunting. Tanahashi tried for the vibration kick, then Nakamura lightly, mockingly, and repeatedly kicked a kneeling Tanahashi in the face. Anger and intensity grew. After Tanahashi hit a crazy High Fly Flow onto Nakamura from the top turnbuckle to the floor, the match shifted into high gear.

Tanahashi executed some wicked dragon screw leg whips and negotiated Nakamura into a Lion Tamer. Nakamura escaped and hit a pair of Bomaye knees. Tanahashi attempted to counter a third with a bridging reverse hurricanrana, but Nakamura hit it anyway, leading to a fabulous near fall. The crowd was electric, as they knew the match could now end at any point.

As both men descended into exhaustion, their shots became stiffer, as if each thought he might only have one more left in the tank. Tanahashi and Nakamura chain wrestled into their signature maneuvers. The young lions at ringside displayed expressions of shock. Finally, Tanahashi won a battle on the top turnbuckle and hit three High Fly Flows. He covered Nakamura for the pin at the 32-minute mark, causing the crowd to erupt with approval. I cannot recommend watching this highly enough.

It may be nothing more than sweet solace at the end of an otherwise disappointing season for the Buffalo Bills, but damn, their win over the NY Jets in their regular season finale sure does feel good. The scenario was this: if the Jets beat the Bills, they were in the playoffs. If they lost and the Pittsburgh Steelers won against the hapless Cleveland Browns, the Steelers would take their place in the postseason. Coincidently, Baltimore’s Buffalo Bills bar, The Rockwell, and its Steelers bar, Todd Connor’s, are right next door to one another. Late in the fourth quarter, the Bills intercepted a Jets pass, effectively sealing the game for Buffalo and sending the Steelers to the playoffs. In response, we Bills fans decided to parade our celebration straight through Todd Connor’s! Watch a rare moment of simulataneous sports elation.

I recently figured out an incredibly fast way of leveling up your character in Skyrim. First, it pays to understand just how one levels up. Skyrim contains 18 skills, each of which can independently level from 15 to 100. Examples include One-Handed, which levels each time you use a one-handed weapon, and Light Armor, which levels each time your light armor is damaged in combat.

Each time one of your skills gains a level, your character will level up a little bit. Therefore, the trick to leveling your character is to level at least one skill very quickly.

The skill of choice for quick leveling is Alchemy. Each time you create a potion at an alchemy table your Alchemy level increases a little bit. The magnitude of the increase is proportional to the value of the potion created. In other words, create lots of powerful potions and level up fast.

This process is optimized once your Alchemy and Enchanting skills are leveled to 100 and all of their perks are learned. This won’t happen all at once, but if you follow the steps below they will level quickly. Once you max them out, repeat the steps below to optimize the process.

Potions are created by combining two or more ingredients that you discover wandering around Skyrim. These include flowers you can pick, flying insects you can trap, and parts of enemies left behind like a Giant’s Toe. You could collect these ingredients in the wilderness, but that approach is very slow.

Instead you should grow ingredients yourself. You can do this in the Hearthfire DLC by building your own house. Other guides have covered how to do this, so I’ll skip those details. The key is to include two things in your house – a garden and a greenhouse. You need to harvest three ingredients: creep cluster, mora tapinella, and scaly pholiota. Each of these can be discovered or purchased on their own.

The benefit of planting in a garden and greenhouse is that you harvest three to five plants every time they grow. Once you advance your alchemy skill to level 70, you can unlock the Green Thumb perk that doubles that amount. That means 6 to 10 plants for each pot or plot that you plant in. There is no faster way to collect ingredients.

The reason I choose these three ingredients is that they create the most powerful potion possible given the plants that you can grow at your house. Plants regrow every three days, so mining them requires that you pick all of them out of your garden, go inside, pick all out of your greenhouse, then press Select and fast forward time three days. Go outside, pick the plants from your garden, and repeat.

Before creating potions, you want to be wearing apparel that bestows the Fortify Alchemy bonus. The four pieces of apparel that allow this bonus are your helmet/hood/circlet, bracers/gauntlets/gloves, amulets/necklaces, and rings. You can max these out with a bonus of 29% stronger potions. The bonuses stack, so you will want to be wearing all four pieces of equipment with the 29% bonus.

Any piece of equipment that does not already have a bonus attribute can be given one at an arcane enchanter, provided you have learned the enchantment by disenchanting a piece of equipment that possessed the bonus. If you play the game for any amount of time, you can collect these four types of items in abundance, usually on bandits or others that you kill. You can also find some in chests, smith your own, purchase them from merchants, or pickpocket them. Pickpocketing will label your item as “stolen,” which means they can be confiscated if you get in trouble with the authorities, so better to avoid this option if possible.

The enchanting process is also going to require the most powerful soul gems – the Grand Soul Gems. These can be purchased in bulk at the College of Winterhold in the Arcanaeum. Buy all you can, fast forward two days so that the merchants’ inventories reset, then buy more. You’ll need somewhere around 20 to make this work.

Once back in your house you are almost ready to enchant your apparel with the alchemy bonus. You need to ensure your enchantments are as strong as possible, so you will want to use a Fortify Enchanting potion just before you enchant your equipment. These can be created at the alchemy table by combining Blue Butterfly Wings and Snowberries. The butterfly wings are easily farmed in your greenhouse, while snowberries are almost everywhere in snowy regions. You can collect hundreds of these, especially once the Green Thumb perk is activated.

The next step is a loop. Create four Fortify Enchantment potions. Walk over to your enchanting table and use the potion. Start the enchantment. Take one of the helmets you’ve collected, select the Fortify Alchemy enchantment and the Grand Soul Gem, and create the new equipment. It will give the equipment a 26% alchemy bonus, 1% higher than the maximum possible without the Fortify Enchantment potion. Consume another potion, enchant the pendant, and continue until all four items have been enhanced. Equip them, return the alchemy table and create four more Fortify Enchantment potions. Because of your new equipment these will be stronger than before. Continue the process until you have four pieces of equipment with the maximum 29% alchemy bonus.

Now start creating hundreds of Fortify Carry Weight potions by combining the creep cluster, mora tapinella and scaly pholiota you’ve been harvesting. If your Alchemy level is already at level 100, make it legendary. Use a perk point to activate the Alchemist perk immediately, then start creating potions. At level 20, activate the Alchemist perk (again) and the Physician perk. Activate the other perks at levels 30, 40, 60, 70, 80 and 100. Once you’ve reached level 100, make the perk legendary again and repeat.

In leveling up the Alchemy skill so quickly, you will notice that your character’s level increases quickly as well. You can gain about two levels each time your Alchemy skill goes from level 15 to level 100.

There are some other major benefits that accrue during this process. Because the Fortify Carry Weight potions are so valuable, you can sell them off to merchants and make more money than you will ever need.

I also use this method to update my other skills’ levels. I do this by maximizing my character’s level bar, then finding someone who can train me in a skill. For example, Vilkas in Jorrvaskr in Whiterun can train you in Two-Handed combat. You can level the skill five times at each character level. Once you’ve trained five levels, level up your character, talk to Vilkas again and level up five times more. With the right trainers (see other strategy guides to figure out which), you can raise all of your skills to level 90 without even using them once.

I wrote this quickly, so if anything is confusing let me know. I can add more details or images to help the process along. I hope this was helpful, and have fun exploring Skyrim!

Several years ago I found myself in a room with people on the forefront of the climate movement. Among their ranks were journalists, advocates, and members of nonprofit organizations. These science communicators had gathered to address an issue each of them had been grappling with – how do I find all of the information that I need and communicate it with the people that need to hear it?

The questions seemed so fundamental that I had assumed everyone in attendance already knew the answers. I didn’t, of course, because I was the outsider. As an astrophysicist, research for me is relatively straightforward. There are a limited set of journals that cover our field and a convenient web interface, NASA’s Astrophysics Data System (ADS), to search across their articles.1Friends in other fields have sung the praises of similar programs like EndNote and Mendeley. The program not only links users to all references in an article’s bibliography, but also reports which papers ended up citing that article. Smart engines could even recommend other papers to read based on your selections.

I have found tracking down information online in the realm of climate/energy policy to be more difficult. There are many more organizations doing independent research or running their own initiatives. Think tanks, NGOs, and government agencies are more likely to publish and promote on their own websites than through peer-reviewed journals. The impacts of climate change are so vast that they cut across traditional academic disciplines. They influence weather, oceans, atmospheres, ecosystems, human health, urban development, energy systems, breakthrough technologies, and many more.

When information is so widely dispersed, and we lack smart engines to find them automatically for us, what should our information collection strategy be? I don’t profess to have the “right answer” to this problem, should one even exist. But I’ve spent enough time gathering suggestions from others and trying them out for myself that I felt compelled to report some of the strategies and sources that have worked for me.

Before I begin, I want to comment that you can’t put everything together overnight. I’ve found that so much of the process is just keeping your ear to the ground. When an article I’m reading references an organization with which I’m unfamiliar, I jot it down. I visit their website, make a note about their mission and, if they have them, subscribe to their newsletter and Twitter feeds. I use Twitter lists to tag the feeds and keep them organized.

A great first source for content is Google, which offers among the best suite of tools for aggregating real-time news. Through Google News, you can personalize your news feed to return only the topics and regions you are interested in. The service allows you to specify whether you want content rarely, occasionally, sometimes, often, or always. Google Alerts goes a step further and contacts you when new information becomes available. Many news outlets offer the same capability.

If you are having difficulty deciding what’s important in the moment, the very cool newsmap may be the tool for you. Powered by Google’s search engine, newsmap visualizes the news by separating it into color-coded categories like World, National, Business, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, and Health. The color saturation reflects how old the story is, while the size shows how much it is being reported online. As with Google, you can filter by country and newsource. It’s a handy way to ascertain what’s hot right now.

Over time, or perhaps through a mentor, you may discover that your field has its own news/reference engines. Lawyers gather their research through the library database LexisNexis. Climate and energy folks have the Global Reference on the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources (GREENR). Environment & Energy Publishing reports all the top developments. The news and analysis website Responding to Climate Change (RTCC) provides the latest news regarding low carbon developments.

Another great way to be exposed to new content is through Flipboard2and Zite, which it recently acquired. After signing up, Flipboard presents you with an absurd number of topics to choose from. They range from the conventional (e.g. religion, technology, art) to the more specific (e.g. industrial design, startups, social justice). You select the topics that interest you and Flipboard scours the web to produce a curated magazine readable on most devices. You can also stumble upon new content using, well, StumbleUpon. It has the same idea, but rather than curating material, it randomly deposits you at relevant webpages until you press a button to “stumble” to the next one. I have found a lot of really excellent content through this service.

Because the combined readership of an article or report is likely to possess more cumulative knowledge than the authors themselves, one should never discount the value of user comments. Sites like the New York Times and Ars Technica have great comment engines where user contributions can be elevated to “reader’s picks” or “editor’s picks”. It’s a great way to sample the wisdom of the masses and be exposed to a much broader perspective.

It literally took me years to assemble the repository of references I now possess. In the world of climate and energy policy, I found that information typically arrives in one of three forms – organizational reports, raw or lightly processed data, and independent projects.

Some groups are content to curate data in very specific ways. The Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE) categorizes state policies that promote renewable energy as either financial incentives or rules and regulations. Frack Track provides a self-described “geospatial policy tool” that analyzes and visualizes Pennsylvania’s new wave of gas development on the Marcellus shale. Wells, permitted sites, and locations of violations are provided on a map.

The third form is independent projects, a term that I’m admittedly using as something of a catchall. These include initiatives that aim to tell the story of climate change in unique ways. For example, for their project Atlantic Rising three friends started a journey to travel the 1-meter above sea level contour line to see what life would be like in a flooded world. They interacted with thousands of people in 22 countries gathering photos, film, and writings as they documented the changing lives of those along the rim.

Photographer John Weller believes the best way to protect the environment is by reminding people of nature’s visceral beauty. He spent a decade traveling to the rough waters of the Ross Sea, probably the last, undamaged ocean ecosystem left on earth. His stunning photographs of the region’s living creatures, both above and below the water, have been cataloged in the book The Last Ocean.

Finally, it is sometimes most useful to just speak to people personally. While conferences can be a great place to do this, these environments can be intimidating for newcomers to a field. There are some tricks you can employ to make this process go more smoothly, but I will reserve them for a future post.

Of course, simply having information is not enough. You must synthesize and deliver it to your audience in an effective way. This raises a whole new set of challenges that I will get into in my next post.

In the last 15 years, science has experienced a revolution. The emergence of sophisticated sensor networks, digital imagery, Internet search and social media posts, and the fact that pretty much everyone is walking around with a smartphone in their pocket has enabled data collection on unprecedented scales. New supercomputers with petabytes of storage, gigabytes of memory, tens of thousands of processors, and the ability to transfer data over high speed networks permit scientists to understand that data like never before.

Research conducted under this new Big Data paradigm (aka eScience) falls into two categories – simulation and correlation. In simulations, scientists assume a model for how a system operates. By perturbing the model’s parameters and initial conditions, it becomes possible to predict outcomes under a variety of conditions. This technique has been used to study climate models, turbulent flows, nuclear science, and much more.

The second approach – correlation – involves gathering massive amount of real data from a system, then studying it to discover hidden relationships (i.e. correlations) between measured values. One example would be studying which combination of factors like drought, temperature, per capita GDP, cell phone usage, local violence, food prices, and more affect the migratory behavior of human populations.

At Johns Hopkins University (JHU) I work within a research collective known the Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Science (IDIES). Our group specializes in using Big Data to solve problems in engineering and the physical and biological sciences. I attended the IDIES annual symposium on October 16, 2015 and heard presentations from researchers across a range of fields. In this article, I share some of their cutting edge research.

HEALTH

The United States spends a staggering $3.1 trillion in health care costs per year, or about 17% of GDP. Yet approximately 30% of that amount is wasted on unnecessary tests and diagnostic costs. Scientists are currently using Big Data to find new solutions that will maximize health returns while minimizing expense.

The costs of health care are more than just financial. They also include staff time and wait periods to process test results, often in environments where every minute matters. Dr. Daniel Robinson of JHU’s Department of Applied Mathematics & Statistics is working on processing vast quanties of hospital data through novel cost-reduction models in order to ultimately suggest a set of best practices.

On a more personal level, regular medical check-ups can be time consuming, expensive, and for some patients physically impossible. Without regular monitoring, it is difficult to detect warning signs of potentially fatal diseases. For example, Dr. Robinson has studied septic shock, a critical complication of sepsis that is the 13th leading cause of death in the United States, and the #1 cause within intensive care units. A better understanding of how symptoms like altered speech, elevated pain levels, and tiredness link to the risk of septic shock could say many lives.

Realizing this potential has two components. The first is data acquisition. New wearable devices like the Apple Watch, Fitbit, BodyGuardian, wearable textiles, and many others in development will enable real-time monitoring of a person’s vital statistics. These include heart rate, circadian rhythms, steps taken per day, energy expenditure, light exposure, vocal tone, and many more. These devices can also issue app-based surveys on a regular basis to check in on one’s condition.

Second, once scientists are able to determine which health statistics are indicative of which conditions, these monitors can suggest an appropriate course of action. This kind of individualized health care has been referred to as “precision medicine.” President Obama even promoted it in his 2015 State of the Union Address, and earned a bipartisan ovation in the process. A similar system is already working in Denmark where data culled from their electronic health network is helping predict when a person’s condition is about to worsen.

Dr. Jung Hee Seo (JHU – Mechanical Engineering) is using Big Data to predict when somebody is about to suffer an aneurysm. Because of the vast variety of aneurysm classifications, large data sets are critical for robust predictions. Dr. Seo intends to use his results to build an automated aneurysm hemodynamics simulation and risk data hub. Dr. Hong Kai Ji (JHU – Biostatistics) is doing similar research to predict genome-wide regulatory element activities.

MATERIALS SCIENCE

The development of new materials is critical to the advancement of technology. Yet one might be surprised to learn just how little we know about our materials. For example, of the 50,000 to 70,000 known inorganic compounds, we only have elastic constants for about 200, dielectric constrants for 300-400, and superconductivity properties for about 1000.

This lack of knowledge almost guarantees that there are better materials out there for numerous applications, e.g. a compound that would help batteries be less corrosive while having higher energy densities. In the past, we’ve lost years simply because we didn’t know what our materials were capable of. For example, lithium iron phosphate was first synthesized in 1977, but we only learned it was useful in cathodes in 1997. Magnesium diboride was synthesized in 1952, but was only recognized as a superconductor in 2001.

Dr. Kristin Persson (UC Berkeley) and her team have been using Big Data to solve this problem in an new way. They create quantum mechanical models of a material’s structure, then probe their properties using computationally expensive simulations on supercomputers. Their work has resulted in The Materials Project. Through an online interface, researchers now have unprecendented access to the properties of tens of thousands of materials. They are also provided open analysis tools that can inspire the design of novel materials.

CLIMATE

Another area where Big Data is playing a large role is in climate prediction. The challenge is using a combination of data points to generate forecasts for weather data across the world. For example, by measuring properties like temperature, wind speed, and humidity across the planet as a function of time, can we predict the weather in, say, Jordan?

Answering this question can be done either by using preconstructed models of climate behavior or by using statistical regression techniques. Dr. Ben Zaitchik (JHU – Earth & Planetary Sciences) and his team have attempted to answer that question by developing a web platform that allows the user to select both climate predictors and a statistical learning method (e.g. artificial neural networks, random forests, etc.) to generate a climate forecast. The application, which is fed by a massive spatial and temporal climate database, is slated to be released to the public in December.

Because local climate is driven by global factors, simulations at high resolution with numerous climate properties for both oceans and atmospheres can be absolutely gigantic. These are especially important since the cost of anchoring sensors to collect real ocean data can exceed tens of thousands of dollars per location.

URBAN HOUSING

Housing vacancy lies at the heart of Baltimore City’s problems. JHU assistant professor Tamas Budavári (Applied Mathematics & Statistics) has teamed up with the city to better understand the causes of the vacancy phenomenon. By utilizing over a hundred publicly available datasets, they have developed an amazing system of “blacklight maps” that allow users to visually inspect all aspects of the problem. By incorporating information like water, gas, and electricity consumption, postal records, parking violations, crime reports, and cell phone usage (are calls being made at 2pm or 2am?) we can begin to learn which factors correlate with vacancy, then take cost effective actions to alleviate the problem.

WHAT’S NEXT?

As Big Data proliferates, the potential for collaborative science increases in extraordinary ways. To this end, agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are pushing for data to become just as large a part of the citation network as journal articles. Their new initiative, Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K), is designed to enable biomedical research to be treated as a data-intensive digital research enterprise. If data from different research teams can be integrated, indexed, and standardized, it offers the opportunity for the entire research enterprise to become more efficient and less expensive, ultimately creating opportunities for more scientists to launch research initiatives.

My personal research uses Big Data to solve a problem caused by Big Data. In a world in which researchers have more data as their fingertips than ever before, the uncertainty caused by small sample sizes has decreased. As this so-called statistical noise drops, the dominant source of error is systematic noise. Like a scale that is improperly calibrated, systematic noise inhibits scientists from obtaining results that are both precise and accurate, regardless of how many measurements are taken.

In my dissertation, I developed a method to minimize noise in large data sets provided we have some knowledge about the distributions from which the signal and noise were drawn. By understanding the signal and noise correlations between different points in space, we can draw statistical conclusions about the most likely value of the signal given the data. The more correlations (i.e. points) that are used, the better our answer will be. However, large numbers of points require powerful computational resources. To get my answers, I needed to parallelize my operations over multiple processors in an environment with massive amounts (e.g. ~ 1TB) of memory.

Fortunately, our ability to process Big Data has recently taken a big step forward. Thanks to a $30 million grant from the state of Maryland, a new system called the Maryland Advanced Research Computing Center (MARCC) has just come online. This joint venture between JHU and the University of Maryland at College Park has created a collaborative research center that allows users to remotely access over 19,000 processors, 50 1TB RAM nodes with 48 cores, and 17 petabytes of storage capacity. By hosting the system under one roof, users share savings in facility costs and management, and work within a standardized environment. Turnaround time for researchers accustomed to smaller clusters will be drastically reduced. Scientists also have the option of colocating their own computing systems within the facility to reduce network transmission costs.

The era of Big Data in science, which started with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in 2000, is now in full force. These are exciting times, and I cannot wait to see the fruits this new paradigm will bear for all of us.

About Me

Hi, I’m Mike Specian. I am currently a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow hosted at the U.S. Department of Energy. This site is a repository for things that matter to me including science, energy, climate, public policy, and photography from around the world. You can follow me on Twitter, through an RSS feed or by subscribing to email updates below.